Crossing the border with Blue Jays beat reporter Jordan Bastian.

Burnett returns, League departs

The names on the transaction line weren’t surprising, but there was an unexpected element to the move. A.J. Burnett was activated as scheduled, and Brandon League was cleared from the roster to make room. But, instead of being optioned, which was the expectation, League was placed back on the 15-day disabled list.

According to the Jays, League, who hasn’t pitched since Aug. 4, has been bothered recently by a pulled oblique. League spent the the better part of the first four months of the season on the DL with an "overdeveloped lat muscle" or a "shoulder injury" — the explanation has never been completely clear. League has said the shoulder and the lat issues were related, and they played a role in his diminished velocity when he showed up to spring. So, after a .419 batting average against and a 6.75 ERA in seven outings, League is back on the DL.

I, for one, was glad to see Frasor didn’t get demoted. Outside of a few rough outings, he hasn’t pitched too poorly for the Jays. He hasn’t been as sharp in his past few trips to the mound either, but can you expect much else when the guy is going a week between appearances? It’s been hard for Frasor to find the innings with how well Toronto’s starters have been pitching. Now, we’ll just have to wait and see if League will see any more big-league innings this season.

This leads to an interesting question:

League was supposed to be the setup man this year — a job that has fallen to Casey Janssen. If B.J. Ryan comes back as expected next year, the thinking seems to be that fill-in closer Jeremy Accardo slips back into the right-handed setup role with Scott Downs as the left-handed option in the eighth inning.

So, what happens to Janssen? Should the Jays keep him in the ‘pen, where he’s excelled? Or, should he be an option for the rotation, which has been the long-term plan from the beginning? And, what should happen with League? Should he still be given a shot at the setup role, or has his season dropped him to the middle-relief realm for the future?

No matter how you slice it, the Jays appear to have a solid pitching staff for 2008.

I’d personally like to see the rotation set up as Halladay, Burnett, Marcum, Dustin, and Janssen with Janssen being on a relatively short leash. If Casey struggles as a starter he goes back to the pen and Litch can be called up from triple A. In the bullpen League can be used as the 7th inning guy if needed. If he shows he can duplicate last years season then the jays can use him or Jeremy as trade bait, with the one who stays being the set-up man. Don’t want to trade either of them ? then the jays can just have a rock solid bullpen, which is obviously a good luxary to have.
If Gustavo Chacin is still on the team then I would leave him as a long reliever/spot starter, untill a team is willing to trade for him, if no team is then he’s simply some pretty good depth to have in case someone gets injured.

I think the starters next year-barring injury is exactly what we see now.

Personally, I love the idea of having Accardo, Janssen and League as the 7th + 8th inning guys. It gives us the luxury of having one fresh each day. All we need from starters is 6 innings and then lights out.

Romero will be back and take the place of Tallet. The balance of the pen includes BJ Ryan, Frasor and Chacin. Wolfe starts off in AAA and gives us a quality replacement in case of injury. Chacin, hopefully gives us a starter replacement, and so does Janssen.

Nice to have options, and it’s going to be a very strong pitching staff.

As far as the bullpen goes, I’ve got a feeling Frasor might be the odd man out next year. The thing with bullpens, however, is that you never know what might happen. During Spring Training, after all, Accardo was pretty much being written off. Fast forward to August, and everyone’s singing a different tune about the guy.

I dunno…I often feel like a relief pitcher has the hardest job in baseball. They’re often forgotten when they perform well and when they screw up, they’re ripped into, demoted, and thrown into trades for virtually nothing.

I dunno….Wells has been pretty disappointing all round this season. With a runner just on second he’s 9 for 52 (.214), with a runner just on third he’s 4 for 17 (.235), and with runners on first and second he’s 6 for 30 (.200). Those are hardly impressive.

Granted, with the bases loaded or runners on second and third, he’s a combined 10 for 18. Now that’s something!

What gets me is the amount of times he pops out or grounds out without even advancing the runner. I mean, come on, 9 for frickin’ 52 with a man on second? Your clean-up/fifth guy in the order’s got to do better than that….

Sure, Rios has a lot of solo shots, but he spent a much longer amount of time at the lead-off spot than Wells.

And I realize that Wells went on his “hot” streak when he was leading off, but that still doesn’t make up for the fact that aside from that streak, he hasn’t been hitting the long ball (or even hitting consistently). It’s looking like it’ll be a struggle for him to even top 20 HRs on the season. For a guy being paid that much money to hit in the 3, 4, or 5 spot in the order, that’s really not acceptable.

When it comes right down to it, I’m not arguing that Wells isn’t a good player. He is, but he’s having a brutal season and without him producing, the Jays’ lineup is too slow and too reliant on the long ball. The Jays need this guy to hit .300 with 30 HRs or else they’re too easy to pitch to.

I would like to see Roy, AJ, McGowan, Marcum, Janssen. Then have Downs and Accardo in setup with BJ closing. League will get his shot at mid relief. Chacin if he is healthy can be long relief. Either way, I think AJ will opt out after 2008 so Jays will need another starter again.

Thanks for catching the 52/42 thing. I was getting a little cross-eyed there!

But I’m still not that impressed even with May taken out. 9 for 31 is decent, but not that great for your franchise player. Look at these other players’ averages with a man on second:

Derek Jeter: 17 for 42, .405

Magglio Ordonez: 15 for 40, .375

David Ortiz: 13 for 38, .342

Vladimir Guerrero: 12 for 35, .343

Now those are numbers! And I’m only harping on the runner on second business because I think a high average in that situation shows not only the ability to hit in the clutch, but also the mindset to keep an inning going and keep the lineup moving. There are other Jays’ players who are doing worse than Wells (re: Glaus at 5 for 35, .143 with a runner on second), but after signing that contract in the offseason, Wells is a lightning rod for criticism. Sure, you take out May and he’s had a “decent” season. But decent, my friend, doesn’t really cut it….

Does anyone remember how Carlos Beltran played the year after he signed his big contract with the Mets? .266, 16 HR, 78 RBI. What is he now? A perenial all-star who you can count on for a gold glove and 30+ HR, 100+ RBI every year. Give Wells a chance before you jump off his bandwagon. We have him 7 more years so you better get used to him. He will come around, if not this year, then next year

Don’t get me wrong — I’m still a big fan of Wells and I’m pretty sure he’ll bounce back next year. My point is simply that his all round dysfunction this year is one of the major reasons the offense is scuffling along. Without him hitting for average AND power, the meat of the order is simply an invisible Wells and two guys who are slow, strikeout prone, and reliant on the home run (Thomas and Glaus).

But, yeah, like Beltran, I’m expecting the guy to bounce back next year with much better numbers. He’s hit too well in the past for this to continue….

Glaus should be traded while his stock is relatively high and is a free agent after 08. How about signing Lowell or Branyan or wait for 08 and sign Crede or Blalock or better yet Chipper for Glaus’ replacement. Johnny Mac is now your full time everyday SS next year. He is a wiz at SS and his bat is much improved with his increased playing time. Trade Johnson so Lind can play. Wells leads off.

“The Rockies couldn’t acquire a starter in time to avoid pitching right-hander Tim Harikkala against the Cubs Sunday, but they’re considering trading for Blue Jays righty Josh Towers or Orioles righty Steve Trachsel, both of whom have cleared waivers. They also inquired about A’s righty Chad Gaudin, who is 0-5 with an 8.54 ERA in his last six starts, but determined the price to be too high. Towers, also drawing interest from other clubs, could be moved in the next several days . . .”

It’s definitely easy to take splits too far, but I’m not really taking any of this too seriously. I just like talking ball and stats with someone else who enjoys the game.

All nit-picking and obscure stats aside, I just think we’d be seeing a different Jay ballclub this year if Wells was playing up to par. I think this lineup is built around Wells and when he’s not hitting for average and slugging the ball like he did last year, the whole lineup suffers. Of all the slumps and injuries the Jays have had this year, I think Wells’ has effected them the most.

But you know what’s funny, I just turned on the game and guess who’s up to bat with a runner on second? Our man Vernon Wells. And what does he do? Grounds out to short, but I will grant you, he did move Rios over to third….

I agree that Zaun’s arm isn’t looking too good these days, but I think he deserves a little bit of slack — McGowan and Burnett can’t hold a runner on to save their life. They’ve got huge leg kicks and in general they’re just slow to the plate.

But I agree about Thigpen — I think he deserves more time behind the plate. I love Zaun’s attitude, but he’s definitely not getting any younger.

And, gsumner, did you see any of those errors? How’s Luna looking at third?

Sometimes I do wonder what these guys do on the road. To tell you the truth, I can’t picture a lot of these guys being big party guys. This is all speculation, but can you really picture Brian Tallet, Roy Halladay, and Lyle Overbay getting tanked together?

Nice game, though, by Litsch tonight. He battled and looked confident in the few innings that I saw him pitch….

Looks like the Jays are snake bit tonight. This should be in Ripley’s. Believe it or not, Syracuse have had 5 errors, New Hampshire-4,Dunedin-3,Lansing-2 and Auburn 1. The only clean game was from the Gulf Coast Blue Jays.

lol, no he didn’t-but he’s already got his share. Griffin had 1, Hattig had 1 and Barker had 3. Barker’s a pretty weak first baseman, which might explain why all the infielders are getting so many errors. I saw 3 of Santos and they were all throwing errors-which might or might not have been caught by a better quality 1st bagger.

In the long run, I think Tallet simply gets more innings because the Jays don’t have any other lefties in the ‘pen other than Downs. And as much of a workhorse as Downs is, he can’t pitch every single day.

As for Frasor, he just happened to pitch himself into the doghouse. His numbers aren’t bad, but he fell apart in a couple of key situations and now Gibbons seems to have no confidence in him.

Man oh man — that’s the ballgame. The Jays really needed more than a split in KC…

He always seems to come in with a runner on, gives up a hit, the runner score and then settles in. The problem is it generally costs us the game. And the pitcher he replaces can’t be too happy either cause he takes the era hit.

We have better in Syracuse-including De Jong who went 3 tonight and gave up no hits.

Venafro has been pretty good against lefties in AAA (.192 average and 2 walks in 13.1). At this point I’d rather have him in the pen than Tallet, although with the rumours that Towers could be headed to Colorado, maybe we can have both.

As far as Chacin goes, he’d need to strengthen his arm a lot before he could start coming out of the bullpen. He had enough problems coming out every 5 days, let alone at an inconsistent rate out of the bullpen. I’m wondering if Chacin even has a future with the Jays any more….

Meta

The following are trademarks or service marks of Major League Baseball entities and may be used only with permission of Major League Baseball Properties, Inc. or the relevant Major League Baseball entity: Major League, Major League Baseball, MLB, the silhouetted batter logo, World Series, National League, American League, Division Series, League Championship Series, All-Star Game, and the names, nicknames, logos, uniform designs, color combinations, and slogans designating the Major League Baseball clubs and entities, and their respective mascots, events and exhibitions.